Can't Help Falling (31 page)

“I do love rowing. But to get to the Olympics, it has to be more than love. It has to be an obsession. I know plenty of rowers with more talent, more ability, more everything than I've ever had. The only thing they lacked was the overwhelming desire.”

“What do you mean?”

Peter studied the blue, cloudless sky, the warm, late July air seeping into his skin. “When it's five in the morning and you're rowing in the sleet and your hands are bleeding and blue, that's the only thing that matters. How much you want it. Whether your hunger is deep enough and strong enough to push you
past everything else. I don't know if I still have that. What if it's more about wanting to try and do right by Anita?” Which was crazy. The same way that he knew Emelia couldn't find God for him, he knew he couldn't risk destroying his shoulder to attempt to keep a promise to his dead cousin.

“What do you mean?” Emelia's voice cracked a little as she wrapped her arms around her knees. How could she be cold? It was a perfect summer's day.

“She was my biggest supporter. She could've been an amazing rower. She
was
an amazing rower. But then she fell in with the wrong crowd at university. Started drinking. Doing drugs. As much as she tried, she couldn't seem to dig herself out. Not that you'd ever have known if you'd met her. She always said that I would win the gold for both of us.” That was the last thing she had ever said to him. That she knew he could still do it.

“I'm sorry.”

He stared across the street. A blue Nissan was pulling out of the driveway opposite. Somewhere a child laughed. “The night she died, she called. But I didn't pick up. I was feeling sorry for myself. I'd had a couple of scans that week and the results weren't good. And it seemed like she had finally gotten it together. Found a great guy. Gotten clean. Started SpringBoard. I didn't want to play along with her positivity about me making some great comeback. So I just let it go to voice mail. I was going to call her back in the morning. But by then it was too late.”

Emelia had tears in her eyes. “Peter, it's not your fault. You are not responsible for what happened to her.”

Easy for her to say. He might have been able to save his
cousin and he didn't. No one was ever going to convince him otherwise.

E
melia had to tell him. She'd felt guilty enough as it was but now, knowing he blamed himself? She couldn't walk away from this without saying anything.

Maybe he'd understand. He obviously knew what it felt like to live under the cloud of self-condemnation. The slump of his shoulders and the strain on his face said more than words ever could.

He'd still be angry, upset, need some time to calm down. But for the first time she felt a glimmer of hope that maybe, once the initial shock wore off, he might not hate her. He understood what it was to live under the blame for something horrible.

So maybe somehow, when the dust had settled, he'd find a way to forgive her. Or maybe he'd hate her even more. Maybe he'd take all the condemnation he'd been carrying around and heap it on her. Maybe tomorrow she'd be without a job, a place to live, and some of the best people who had ever happened to her.

“Peter, there's something I need to tell you.” She curled her fingers around the rim of the step, pressed her palms into the wood of the porch.
You can do this, Emelia. He has to know the truth.

Peter looked into the distance, didn't give any sign that he'd even heard her.

Memories overcame her. The strength of his arms when she fell out of the wardrobe. Dancing with him in the pub.
Kissing him. Spinning around with his crazy cat attached to her head.

In a few seconds none of those things would be what he thought of when he thought of her. Emelia would be gone.

“Peter?”

He turned to her with a fierce expression. “How do those people live with themselves?”

“Who?”

“The bottom-feeding lowlifes who call themselves reporters. I'm the first to admit that Anita wasn't perfect, that she'd made some mistakes, but destroying her life? Just for a scoop? Who does that?”

Emelia opened her mouth. But nothing came out. Instead tears formed behind her eyes. She did. She had.

“She was only twenty-four.” Peter's jaw clenched. “Lost. What is wrong with people that we take such pleasure in witnessing other people's downfalls? That entire industries exist to exploit someone else's pain and publicly humiliate them?”

“I'm sure the reporter had no idea what Anita would do. I'm sure she would give anything she had for it all to be different.”

“No she doesn't.” He said the words with complete certainty.

“How do you know that?”

Peter ran his hand through his hair. “Because she's still there. Still bar-crawling. Still preying on people. Still breaking the same sleazy stories.”

Emelia just stared at him, mouth hanging open.

She was what?

E
MELIA PULLED HER COAT AROUND
her as she walked out of the Eagle and Child. Peter's revelation on his porch had been the thing that had finally broken her nine-month Google fast.

All it had taken was a few seconds to work out what he was talking about. She was no longer reporting, but Mia Caldwell still was. Her ex-boss was still using her byline. There was a different photo, but it was of a blond girl who looked similar enough that the average person probably wouldn't notice any difference.

Though discovering the truth had taken only a few clicks, finding the courage for her second attempt at telling him had taken weeks. Finally, she'd told Peter they needed to go over some final ball details. And as she was the pedantic spreadsheet queen, he hadn't questioned it.

The smart move would be to wait. Tell him after the ball. After she'd handed in her notice. But that was months away, and since the moment on the porch where he'd confessed the weight of blame he'd been carrying around and she had failed to give him the honesty he deserved, she hadn't been able to live with herself.

So she'd sat, in the Eagle and Child for two hours, waiting
for him to show up. Checked her phone obsessively. Called him, only for it to go to voice mail. One vodka and soda for courage had turned into two as she'd tried to ignore the pitying gaze of the waitress.

And now she was a little tipsy and vacillating between angry and worried as she paid her bill and stepped outside. She closed the door to the pub behind her and leaned against the stone wall, sucking in a couple breaths of late-summer air. She should've stayed home and helped Allie with the final details of the engagement party that was only a couple of weeks away.

Squaring her shoulders, she pulled out her phone to call a cab. All the anxiety and fear she'd brought into the evening still rolled around inside her with nowhere to go. She began dialing, then turned her phone off and started down the street. It was a nice night. Home was only fifteen minutes away, and it wouldn't get really dark for another half hour or so. Even after a couple of drinks, she could still easily take down anyone stupid enough to try accosting her.

She'd thought the worst that could happen would be if Peter heard what she had to say and said he never wanted to see her again. It had never occurred to her he might not even come.

Emelia walked down the cobbled streets, the warm evening air swirling around her. Up ahead a couple sauntered, arms wrapped around each other, heads close together. They stopped and the woman wrapped her arms around the man's neck.

Emelia crossed the street. She was not in the mood for navigating around a couple making out in the middle of the sidewalk. When she looked up, she realized her feet had taken her to Turl Street, landing her right outside the antiques shop where they'd
first met. She leaned against the glass of the second large window, pressing her palms against the cool surface as she peered into the adjacent room. Her wardrobe still stood majestic in the far corner.

Would she have crawled into it if she'd known everything that would follow that one impulsive decision?

Are you a Susan or a Lucy?

His first words to her rang in her ears. She'd flicked the piercing question off with a quick retort. From the first time she'd met him, she'd been deflecting the truth. She was a Susan. She'd always known it, and life had only confirmed it. She would end up alone. Just like Susan had.

“Emelia!” Her head jerked up as Peter's voice cut through the dusk. He was running up the street to her left. What was he doing here? He almost slammed into her as he came to a stop. “Please tell me you didn't wait for me the whole time.” His hair stuck up at all angles off his head. His eyes red rimmed. His navy T-shirt wrinkled. If she hadn't known better she'd have thought he'd been on a bender.

“Of course I did.” She huffed out a breath. Waited for his excuse.
Please let it be a good one.

Peter closed his eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“Where were you?” Now that he was clearly okay, anger was gaining dominance over the worry.

“Victor—”

He didn't even get the rest of his words out because she put her hand up and shoved him in the chest.

“On second thought, I don't even want to hear it. I could not be less interested in your compulsive need to rescue your drunken lout of a brother.”

“He totaled his car.
Wrapped it around a tree. This afternoon.”

That paused her for a second. “Did he hurt anyone else?”

“No. Not even himself, really. He was so blotto they reckon he was saved by the fact he was probably floppy at impact.” Peter's expression was half of relief, half of consternation.

“Good to know I rank so highly I didn't even warrant a call or a text. Despite the fact that I left you so many it's humiliating.” She heard her whiny voice, her self-centered words, and immediately wanted to shove them all back inside her mouth.

Peter pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped down the screen. Even from where she stood, she could see her name appearing multiple times. “I'm so sorry. I've been so busy trying to work out what to tell Mum and Dad.”

Whaaaat? His brother had wrapped his car around a tree and Peter was concerned with doing parental damage control? “What does he have on you?”

“What do you mean?” The streetlights around them started to flicker on, showing the stress written across his face in better detail.

“I get sibling loyalty. I do. But from everything I've ever seen, he treats you like his little lapdog. And you just take it.” In the distance a siren wailed.

He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “It's all my fault, okay!”

“All what is your fault?”

“His face.”

“Are you talking about his scar?” Anita's death was his fault. His brother's face was his fault. His shoulder was his fault. Was anything not his fault?

“Yes, his scar.
The angry, jagged welt that disfigures one side of his face.” His legs gave way, and Peter sagged against the window next to her. “We got into a fight when I was thirteen. A heated one. He came at me. I grabbed the poker from beside the fire. I only meant to fend him off with it, but at the last moment, he dived and it slashed his cheek. It needed thirty-two stitches. Then it got infected. He's hated me for it ever since.”

“And turned you into his servant as a result.”

“Something like that. It would break my parents' hearts to find out what he was really up to. He's the heir. The future Viscount Downley.”

As far as Emelia was concerned, Victor was old enough to look after himself. “You aren't responsible for him. Or his choices. And you always rescuing him just makes it worse. He never has to face up to his consequences. What if one day he plows into someone? Hurts them? Kills them?” She half yelled the last two questions, just as a middle-aged woman was coming down the sidewalk toward them. She quickly crossed the street to avoid them.

“I don't know how to let it go, Em. Don't know how not to show up. Then he'll really hate me.”

“I hate to say it, Peter, but after all this time, I'm not sure whether your showing up or not is going to make any difference.”

He ran a hand through his hair, leaving another tuft sticking up from his head. “You're probably right. I guess I just thought if I showed up enough, was always there, one day he might forgive me. That we might find a way to get past the enmity that has always been there. But you're right. It just keeps getting worse. Now he'll have a drunk-driving charge to add to the others.” His shoulders slumped in the shadows.

Emelia blinked back the tears that were forming. This guy who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. She knew too well what that felt like. She pressed her lips together for a second. Could she do it? Tell him what she'd never told anyone? Her fingers tapped the window beside them. “Why do you think I hide in wardrobes?”

He glanced around, as if only just realizing where they were. “Because you're trying to find Narnia?”

“My mom loved Narnia.”

“I remember.”

Emelia sucked in a deep breath. “What I didn't tell you is that my mom wasn't well. She . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to.”

She forced herself to look him in the eyes. Sometime soon she'd tell him the whole truth. He'd hate her. But at least tonight she could give him this. “No. I want to. I want to explain that I know what it's like to carry the weight of responsibility for something horrible.

“My mom loved Narnia, it's true. While other moms cleaned houses and made dinners, mine made up complicated stories of us in Narnia. She was Queen Isabelle. I was Princess Emelia. When you're six, it's a pretty blurry line between a fun mom and one who doesn't operate in reality. You don't know that a person you see as someone who builds the most exciting and complicated fantasy worlds isn't a great storyteller but someone who suffers from psychosis.”